Week 2

This week has been much more hands on than my first week was. I've started up on some research and was also trusted with a scalpel at one point.

Monday was very heavy on new information. At 7 I attended a spine conference and saw a few research talks from visiting students only from schools that started with the letter "S." The first talk was from a Stonybrook student, on dystroglycan in the ECM and its effects on brain development. Following that was a Syracuse student who gave a talk on radiosurgery for brain metastases. Finally, keeping with the "S" theme, a student from Stanford gave a talk on single cell RNA sequencing for leptomeningeal disease. It was very interesting to hear such different topics of research that I would normally not look into. However, the best part of these talks was listening to top surgeons and physicians in the field discussing and asking questions following each presentation. Hearing which things they focus on and what parts were unclear or confusing to them was different than questions I hear at the BME 7900 series talks in Ithaca.

After that I went to a lecture by Dr. Alex Vaccaro. He is president of the Rothman Institute and the Chairman of Orthopedic Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University. He is also the team surgeon for the Philadelphia Eagles. Dr. Vaccaro was even presented with a superbowl ring after Philly's win this past season, which he made sure to show off. He did note that wearing it on the street might make some Giants fans mad, but at least it isn't a Patriots ring. This talk was on football players and their return to play following cervical spine injury. It was fascinating to hear the process that players have to go through, even mid-game sometimes, when they take a hit and the team doctors notice some sort of nervous system dysfunction. There are many variables that have to be taken into account to determine if a player can continue play or if they need to sit out. And for some injuries, the team doctors need to make a call on if a player can ever play football again, let alone for a season. Unfortunately, Dr. Vaccaro noted that cycling produces 2-3x more spinal cord injuries than football. As someone who averages 30-50 miles per week on a bike, this was not comforting information. After the talk I was able to meet Dr. Vaccaro and shake his hand(yes I touched the Superbowl ring) and speak with him briefly before he had to leave.

Tuesday and Wednesday I helped process sheep spines for an ongoing study on intervertebral discs. We traveled out to the NJ/PA border where the animals are kept. The vet used a reciprocating saw to remove the lumbar spine and I was able to use a scalpel and a few other tools to try and remove as much muscle, ligament, and fascia as possible. The vet had to cut out the tenderloin to access the spine but unfortunately, it was not fit for consumption. It did make me want some lamb shank though. Then the following day we used a coping saw to cut out the discs for processing. Luckily, I grew up using tools so I was actually faster than the two MDs when it came to sawing. Though I will concede I was not as fast with a scalpel. There was another tool which was almost like pliers but they could cut, so when I did enough work with the scalpel, I could just rip off chunks of flesh and bone. We also had a riveting conversation about corn which was confusing at first to the fellows I was working with because there is a german word with the same pronounciation that means liquor. And apparently cheese is expensive in Switzerland so people drive to Germany to buy it, but theres a 1kg/week limit or something. Not much else to talk about when you're just removing flesh from vertebrae I guess.

Later in the week I started working with Dr. Ana Krieger in Sleep Medicine. We are working on validating a device from my PI's collaborator. However, in talking with her, I see potential for lots of engineering innovation in this field. And I'm becoming fascinated with sleep medicine the more I talk with her. With all of the mental and physical health problems that are becoming an epidemic in our society, sleep habits are a huge part of that equation. So it's important to study this and try and help people with sleep disorders that can relate to other aspects of health. We already talked about a meeting with some people she knows at a multinational electronics company where I could potentially make some connections for future projects or even for my career path when I graduate.

Next week I should start working on another research project in Dr. Hartl's group, which I started doing a literature review for in any spare time I had.